Modern day data processing of documents, such as checks, have included proposed systems in which the digital image of the document is recorded on a recording medium such as tape for transmission to a remote station. Prior methods of recording such images consisted of scanning the document and storing on a recording medium such as magnetic tape the pattern of the image in the form of binary data bits for transmission to a remote station where the image of the document is reproduced utilizing the recorded data. This has resulted in an excessively large amount of binary data which must be stored for further processing. In order to reduce this data, character thinning processes have been used to reduce the printed characters or other shapes on the document to their basic outline. Examples of such a process may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,196,398; 3,975,709; 3,846,754, and 3,863,218. While the thinning process described in these patents reduces the character to a single line configuration, the amount of binary data necessary to describe such thinned character is still substantial.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a system which digitally compresses an image to the least amount of digital information necessary to describe the image.
It is another object of this invention to provide a system which reduces the character to either its left-hand or right-hand boundary shape.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a system which describes the compressed image in more than one characteristic and then selects that characteristic which requires the minimum number of bits to describe the compressed image.